Great phone apps that help with anxiety and panic attacks.

Hello everyone, hope you're a well. I just wanted to say a massive thank you for all the love on my previous post, if you haven't read it you can find it here - everyone has been so lovely and it was great to learn how blogging has helped you too.

Today's post is all about those amazing phone apps that can help when you're in tough situations, you may be feeling stressed, anxious, finding it difficult to focus, on the verge of a panic attack or currently having a panic attack. Some of the apps that I am going to talk about have been helpful to me and I find them to be some of the best ones that I have used. Of course, you may have others that you use that you think are really great - so please let me know in the comments below!

When I suffer with panic attacks I always use breathing exercises to help me and if I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack I will do them straight away. Luckily for me I have a lovely boyfriend who will often sit by the side of me and do the breathing exercises with me to help me through them. But honestly breathing exercises are so important, they can stop panic attacks from happening and stop them whilst you're having one. All the apps I will mention all have breathing exercises on them so do check them out if you're unsure how/or what to do for them.

What's up? App.

This was one of the first apps I ever downloaded. For a while I never really thought they'd be these kind of apps to help with your mental health - I remember at one point I was feeling so stressed and anxious that I just went onto the Playstore on my phone and typed in 'anxiety apps' because at that particular moment I needed help.

When you first download the app it goes through screens that you can swipe and tells you that you're not alone, and then gives you some facts of how many people experience a mental illness in some form. Once you are at the home screen you have so many options to click onto: Help right now, Coping strategies, Information, and Personal. If you're feeling anxious at that very moment you can click the first option of 'help right now' and it then gives you a list of activities. One of my favourite things in this section is the 'Get grounded game' which basically distracts you and makes your mind concentrate on other things. An example could be that it says: Name 5 different animals that only eat meats or other animals - it then has 5 stars at the bottom and either out loud or in your head you answer the question and click the stars when you think of one, and it then continues until you're feeling more calm.

It's got breathing exercises on there, and one of my favourite things on the whole app is the information section. It has topics including, anger, anxiety, depression, self esteem and stress, and when you click onto them it tells you about them. Something that helped me was learning about anxiety, when I read about it from Anxiety, Panicking about Panic, it helped me to understand anxiety and it actually put my mind more at ease because I could link certain aspects that I suffered to anxiety.

Headspace App

Another great app is Headspace. I'm sure a lot of people have heard about this one, it's a popular one. When you sign up to the app - which is completely free (although you can decide to pay for premium if you wanted), you get asked if you have meditated before, if you haven't then it will go through it with you explaining how to. When I signed up I clicked that I had practised it a little and you get basic meditating exercises. There is 10 sessions and you can choose 3, 5 or 10 minutes, and you can set a reminder daily to when you would like to do it. There's so much on this app, it'll be way too long to go through everything on there, but you've got a working out session so you can decide to go on a run and have a coach to listen to, there's a travel section, walking, SOS, morning activities, helping you to get to sleep including sounds to listen to, an unwind section, rough day, anxious moments... I could go on and on! There is also the breathing activities to help steady your breathing if you're feeling anxious or even having a panic attack.

There is a lot more when you pay for premium but in a lot of these options there's a try for free option - which is handy as if it's something that really helps, you might think about paying for it monthly. You can also link this app to your Alexa which is pretty cool, so when you do your daily meditation you can listen to the sounds and the person talking through the Alexa.

I'll admit this isn't one that I use the most, I do enjoy having a go at the basic meditation in the mornings, it helps to relax you and makes you feel more grounded before you start your day.

Calm App

My third app is Calm. I've been really enjoying this one at the moment. It's similar to the previous two in that you have a selection of options you can choose. You can also pay for a premium account where you get access to more, but there's plenty you can do for free. I really like that when you open this app it plays calm music, I actually opened it once to show my mum and I didn't realise it played music and there were others sat by us at the time and I said 'whoever is playing the music can you stop whilst I show mum something on this app' and then I realised it was me, it was the app.

My favourite part of the app is the sleep section. You have a few sleep stories that you can listen to as you're about to go to bed. They make you feel unbelievably relaxed, and the people who voice it have the most calming voices ever. Obviously my favourite is Stephen Fry's Blue Gold story - although as he gets to the end where he's barely whispering it did make me laugh a little - but of course he gets quieter and calmer as the story goes on so you fall asleep. It also has so many sounds that you can listen to when you're trying to get to sleep - and there is something for everyone here! Ocean waves, piano music, space themed ones - they're all just fab. You can have a look at the app if you click on the picture below or search calm in your phone app store.

Thank you so much for reading and if you have any apps that use let me know in the comments I'm always looking for more of these! Do you use any of the ones I have mentioned and if so do they help you?

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Some links may be affiliate links so I can get a small amount of money through them at no extra cost to you. Also this is not a sponsored post I just wanted to share these apps with you.

This is lovely Chloe! I've heard of Headspace but I didn't know what it was actually for! I could've totally used this actually last Saturday as I was driving to my "new" job. I was on the phone with my boyfriend the entire time and as I got closer to my workplace, I had such a major stomach ache and bloatage, and nervous 💩 (sorry to be graphic LOL)! But I will keep them in mind next time :)

Aw thank you! It's a great app, so good for calming you down! Aww I'm the exact same, when I went to my first day I threw up just before I left because I was so nervous - it's crazy what these things do to us!! xx

Chloe thanks for introducing something new to me, I never knew there were apps for anxiety. I will totally share this with my friend who get quite nervous before interviews. I like how the Calm app tells stories and plays music, such a relaxing way to fall asleep 👍💖💕

Thank you so much for sharing these apps Chloe, they all sounds brilliant for staying calm. I used to have the Headspace app on my old phone and this has reminded me to re-download it, it was such a great way to get into meditation. I like the sound of Calm, especially the stories and music which helps with sleep. I'll have to check that one out. Great post lovely! <3 xx

Aww that's okay! Yeah I do love the meditation sessions they have on Headspace - so great for keeping you calm and relaxed. Yeah do check out Calm, it's my favourite one, and the stories are so good for helping you get to sleep! Thank you!! xx

i’ve never used these apps but I have heard about them, I really want to try the calm app. I like that you can have sleep stories as I have a hard time falling asleep to straight quiet. I use to just have a fan on but with it getting colder it’s just making me sick so i need to find a new thing to help me get to sleep. thanks so much for sharing xx

The calm app is great, definitely worth downloading and having a look at some of the features. The stories are fab and if you can't sleep with someone talking the music and sounds are just as good! :) Thank you for reading! xx

Wow! Some of these apps I’ve never even heard of. Thanks girl for this I’ll definitely check them out. I struggled with anxiety through University and it’s posts like this that can really help the next person out! Love it 😍

I have only used the Calm app before and I do love the free version, I just wish there were more audios to listen to available. I want to buy the premier but it is so expensive. After seeing how expensive it was I wanted to download more apps for anxiety etc so I am SO glad I have read this post as the other 2 apps you mentioned sound amazing, as soon as I get into bed later I am going to download them! Fab post xx https://lifeofshar.co.uk/

Calm app is great and it has the odd few audio clips you can listen to for free but there are a lot more when you pay which is annoying :( Glad this has helped you find others though, Headspace is great - it is another one where you have some stuff thats free and others you have to pay for, and then the whats up? app is free but it doesn't include sounds unfortunately. Glad you liked the post! xx